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It’s painful when a friend loses his job—even if that friend is someone you’ve never met. For talk-radio fans in the thirty-eight states that receive the powerful signal of Boston’s CBS Radio affiliate WBZ-AM, the two most important hours of the weekend were on Saturday night between 7:00pm and 9:00pm Eastern. For most of this decade, that timeslot was occupied by an outstanding host named Pat Desmarais. Desmarais, who had appeared on radio stations in New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts prior to his tenure at WBZ, was an intellectually vibrant host, a man unafraid to defend positions generally considered...

President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer. When reached for comment today, Gupta did not deny the account but declined to comment. The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting...

"After an outcry from the White House and conservative bloggers who claimed that the report had been based on falsified documents, CBS retracted the story, saying that the documents' authenticity could not be verified. Rather, who had been with CBS for decades and was one of the most familiar faces in American journalism, was fired by the network the day after the 2004 election."

After two years of relentlessly bad ratings news, Katie Couric finally has something she can smile about. . . That makes four straight weeks where her audience was bigger than at the same point last year, according to Nielsen Media Research. The improvement could be a result of the positive feedback Couric received for her interview of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin during the presidential campaign. Palin fumbled on a question about what publications she read regularly, and the interview was a launching point for one of Tina Fey's "Saturday Night Live" spoofs.

The media industry will find 2009 to be a very difficult economic year, according Diane Mermigas, editor-at-large at MediaPost. Some television and newspaper properties "will shut down." Broadcaster CBS is "most likely to collapse or convert into a general entertainment cable network."

Unrecognized by Americans majorities - domestic and international threats will change our country forever (blame the media) - Part Two - Islam By Vincent Gioia The people in any country are only able to protect themselves and assure their freedom if they are aware of what is going on that affects them. Knowledge of current events was difficult to obtain two hundred years ago when the United States was created but nonetheless early Americans realized the importance of keeping everyone informed so they built into the Constitution a safeguard for freedom of expression which is acknowledged in the First Amendment...

This could go down as the most egregiously misleading graphic in morning show history. Have a look at the screengrab. Reporting on census data being released today, the Early Show on CBS displayed a graphic, under the headline "Economic Crisis," reporting that in the first part of this decade--the early Bush years: * Household income dropped 79% * The poverty rate increased 70% * Unemployment was up 71% What?? If those number were true, they would reflect a depression that would have made the 1930s look like life on easy street. View video.

SAG Strike Could Spell Disaster for TV (Cable Networks DeathWatch™) Nov 25, 2008 -By Nellie Andreeva, THR.com LOS ANGELES Already engaged in deep soul searching following a dismal fall TV season and flatlining ad market, broadcast networks are facing another blow: a potential Screen Actors Guild strike early next year. SAG's decision during the weekend to seek a strike authorization from its membership following the breakdown of its negotiations with the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers has shifted the once-remote possibility of a SAG walkout much closer to reality. While its effect would not be as far-reaching as...

Someone really has it in for Sumner Redstone, the 85-year-old media tycoon who is restructuring his debt-plagued empire. An extraordinary piece appears on TheFirstPost.co.uk and is picked up elsewhere. “His demons have come home to roost. He lives alone in his mansion, famously miserly, shaving naked in the hot tub and obsessively feeding his tropical fish, his only constant companions since the collapse this year of his five-year marriage . . .” All very Citizen Kane. And yet . Redstone is not universally loved, and is, indeed, known for his interest in tropical fish and credited with starting a fashion...

They don't have political rallies to bring them together anymore, but it's no secret that a lot of people out there don't much like Barack Obama. The president-elect, according to his more fervent campaign-season detractors, has a raft of unforgivable faults: He's a socialist, a Muslim, an actual love-child of Malcolm X. His birth certificate was missing, his book had been ghost-written by William Ayers, and his wife, "Mrs. Grievance," as a National Review cover dubber her, was perennially on the cusp of getting caught ranting against the white man. The only thing keeping the Illinois senator's infamy from going...

Yesterday the fourth law suit, challenging Obama's citizenship and Natural Born status reached the Supreme Court: 1. Philip J Berg, PA An answer from Barack Obama is due by Dec.1 2. Leo C. Donofrio, NJ The case is scheduled for conference by all 9 judges on Dec 5 3.Chris Strunck, NY filed with SCOTUS last week 4. Cort Wrotnowski, CT (second case)filed yesterday. many more to come... As explained earlier, Hawaii allows one to obtain a Certification of Hawaiian Live Birth based on a statement of one relative only. It means,that while Obama was born in Kenya, his grandma or...

In 2006, Thailand announced it was blocking access to YouTube for anyone with a Thai I.P address, and then identified 20 offensive videos for Google to remove as a condition of unblocking the site. ‘If your whole game is to increase market share,’ says Lawrence Lessig, speaking of Google, ‘it’s hard to . . . gather data in ways that don’t raise privacy concerns or in ways that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.’ In March of last year, Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google, was notified that there had been a precipitous drop in activity...

http://www.cbs.com/late_late_show/video/video.php?cid=583362809&pid=M33Jraf2f2QfyZPEGNrxTIz8BwIa8hw_&play=true

In an effort to stave off the dismantling of his media empire, Sumner M. Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Viacom and CBS, recently proposed to sell his family’s 1,500-screen theater chain in an effort to restructure his large debt load. The proposal was made in a plan submitted to his bankers, according to two people briefed on the negotiations who spoke on condition they not be identified. But the proposed sale may not be enough to placate bankers, not least because no one can seem to agree on what the movie theaters are worth. Here is what just about everyone,...

Will Shari and Sumner Redstone Split? (Cable Networks DeathWatch™) By Ronald Grover BW Exclusives Redstone's 80% stake gives him clout in any deal Shari offers Sean Gallup/Getty Images Shari may seek an equity infusion from private investors Phelan M. Ebenhack/National Amusements/AP Photo Story Tools As family feuds go, few have been more intractable than the one that has simmered between media mogul Sumner M. Redstone and his daughter, Shari. For two years the pair has battled over the direction of National Amusements, the family company that owns a national chain of movie theaters and controls the media giants CBS (CBS)...

NewsBusters.org - Media Research CenterOn Wednesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith discussed the ‘Potomac Primaries’ with Democratic Strategist Dee Dee Myers and Republican CBS Political Analyst Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush Administration Communications Director, who said of John McCain’s conservative critics: "The more that we see kind of the crazies like Ann Coulter out attacking John McCain, the better Republicans feel about their chances in the general election." This attack upon conservatives critical of McCain, who include Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, and others, was prompted by Harry Smith asking about Mike Huckabee’s continued support in...

Full Headline: Juicy Bits Surfacing in Rather Case: In 2004, CBS Considered Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter Independent Panel This week, Dan Rather's legal team submitted a memorandum to the judge overseeing Mr. Rather's $70 million civil lawsuit against his former employers, which for the first time made public some of the thousands of documents that CBS has already turned over in the ongoing discovery process. The Media Mob is still making its way through the thick stack of emails, internal memos, and transcripts included in this stash. But we were kind of amazed by one document. First the...

At the top of Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen praised Barack Obama’s election as the first African-American president but lamented the passage of California’s Proposition 8, preventing gay marriage: "One barrier falls, another returns. Married gays in legal limbo protest through the night as California voters ban same-sex unions." At the top of the 8AM hour, correspondent John Blackstone reported: "In disappointment, supporters of same-sex marriage gathered in Los Angeles last night, after the hard-fought campaign over California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage, they were on the losing side, but not ready to give up." Blackstone went...

Via Drudge. According to a study performed by a Fordham University scholar, the least accurate of the 20 presidential polls were those performed by CBS/New York Times and, in dead last, Newsweek. In its final poll, CBS/Times forecast an 11-point Obama margin, 52-41. Newsweek was even more "optimistic", foreseeing a 12-point Obama win, 53-41.

On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen introduced a new campaign segment: "...throughout this morning, we're bringing you the voices of Americans and what they're thinking as they prepare to vote." In the brief video clip that followed, Colorado Springs City Council member Jan Martin Described herself as a "lifelong Republican" explained: "I think we are at a place and a point in time where hope and unity are two things that this country needs more than anything." The only problem is that Jan Martin was similarly touted by the New York Times in early October, at which point,...

Big Media Coming Apart At The Seams by Diane Mermigas, Thursday, Oct 30, 2008 7:30 AM ET Despite the grim warnings, lower earnings and massive layoffs, it appears the worst is yet to come for big, lumbering media companies. It all rides on what we don't know. We don't know how deep or how long the advertiser and consumer spending pullback will be. There is no historical precedent, given the powerful unraveling of the global economy. We don't know how much revenues and earnings will drop over the next year. Even online advertising growth is dwindling to single digits. We...

FReep this Digg! CONFUSED? What do I mean by "Digg to the top"? Click on the article link that leads to Digg. Once there, hit the Digg icon on the left side (need to sign up first). The Digg button votes the article to the top, thus insuring that thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of potential voters see our conservative articles and videos warning them about the ObamaNation! I wouldn't waste too much time debating the Diggers. Just Digg it to the top and move on to the next one. THIS IS ONE MORE WAY TO...

(CBS) With less than one week until Election Day, Barack Obama maintains a clear lead over John McCain in the presidential race, a new CBS News/New York Times poll suggests. The Democratic nominee now leads his Republican rival by 11 percentage points, 52 percent to 41 percent, among likely voters nationwide.

CBS says it swung to a third-quarter loss, weighed down by a hefty $14.12 billion impairment charge. The New York-based media company reported a loss of $12.46 billion, or $18.58 per share, compared with a profit of $343.3 million, or 48 cents per share, a year ago. CBS says it performed an interim impairment test earlier this month on existing goodwill and intangible assets, which resulted in the impairment charge. CBS says adjusted earnings were 43 cents per share. Revenue rose to $3.38 billion from $3.28 billion, helped by strong growth in its interactive division. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial...

Sumner Redstone is having trouble, and Hollywood is having a party. Just a couple of Fridays ago, Sumner Redstone dined out with Sherry Lansing, the relentless charmer who was his chief at Paramount Pictures for years. The next night, his dinner companion was another of his former executives, Jon Dolgen, ex-chairman of the Viacom Entertainment Group. On both occasions, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Redstone’s wife, Paula, was by his side, and there was chat about the election, among other topics. Never a hint that the troubled marriage had ruptured. No discussion about roiling problems at National Amusements, the...

In a Tuesday night look at the battle for Pennsylvania, the CBS Evening News chose to check how, anchor Katie Couric reported, voters in the Keystone state “are doing some last-minute soul-searching.” The story showcased husband and wife “registered Republicans” who are upset by what reporter Jeff Glor characterized as McCain's “overwhelmingly negative” TV ads. The husband, who conceded he'll be voting for Obama, declared: “I just don't think it's necessary to be that ugly and that nasty against the opponent.” His wife concurred: “I think it actually hurts their cause rather than helps it when they're negative like that....

Philadelphia’s CBS 3 has joined WFTV on the Obama interview ban list. The station interviewers gave Biden tough questions that he apparently did not like, resulting in the same punishment as was dolled out to an Orlando station for another tough interview. Perhaps the Obama campaign should send out a list of acceptable questions before interviews happen. Then again, Biden could just give straight answers and the questions would stop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZT1y1io4vA&eurl=http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=38688

CBS showed the movie "Cinderella Man" at 8:00 p.m. on Oct. 25, 2008, and around 9:15 p.m., the movie showed taking the Lord's name in vein, and the Holy family, several times. This is inappropriate and should be illegal on the public's free airways. CBS could have easily cut that from what we thought was a family movie.

After his own personal mini-meltdown caused him to sell some of his shareholdings in CBS and Viacom, Sumner Redstone said this week that the situation is under control and that he won't be selling any more. Meanwhile, media wags are still handicapping whether one or both of the companies he controls might end up in play. But whatever happens next, Redstone's travails are a clear reminder of how a media mogul's controlling stake in his companies can become bad for business, and for stockholders, particularly when there are two classes of shares involved. [Snip] Just in the past five months,...

The CBS News - New York Times poll released on September 23 is yet another MSM product which juggles the numbers to give Barack Obama an inflated lead. The poll results show Obama with a 13-point lead, but the numbers have been rigged by the use of unrealistic partisan weighting.

In an interview with Barack Obama aired on Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith lobbed softballs at the Democratic candidate, spending half the interview on Obama visiting his ailing grandmother: "Lincoln said, 'all I ever hope to be, I owe to her,' in speaking about his mother. Your grandmother was very much like a mother to you. How important is this trip?" Smith later observed: "Some people say there's risk involved in this, with so little time left." Obama replied: "Yeah, well, the -- I think most people understand that if you're not caring for your family, then you're...

ELECTION REJECTION: NETWORK NEWS SLUMPS; VIEWERSHIP FADES Wed Oct 22 2008 07:25:40 ET The Obama-McCain match-up is proving to be a lackluster election ticket for the Big 3 network news programs, according to NIELSEN MEDIA RESEARCH. As the shouting from the trail and the frantic spinning from the anchor desks intensify, the audience is voting with their remotes. All 3 evening news shows experienced audience drops year-to-year for the week of Oct. 13-19, 2008. CBSNEWS w/ Couric shed a half a million viewers, falling from 6.4 million to 5.9 million; ABCNEWS dropped from 8.1 million to 7.6 million; NBCNEWS...

Sumner Redstone has filed for divorce from his wife of five years, Paula Fortunato, citing irreconcilable differences. The court papers were submitted Friday, Oct. 17, in Los Angeles Superior Court. The two were married in April 2003. The couple's prenuptial agreement stipulates that the 46-year-old Fortunato will receive at least $5 million, or $1 million for each year that she has been wed to the media mogul, according to people who are familiar with terms of the couple's agreement. Redstone, 85, has been telling friends for weeks that his marriage to Fortunato, 46, was ending. But despite the divorce filing...

NEW YORK -- October 20, 2008: Sumner Redstone, who serves as Exec. Chairman for both Viacom and CBS and is a controlling shareholder in both companies, may be forced to sell one or the other to handle a cash crunch at his own National Amusements Inc., the New York Post reported over the weekend. The paper cited "sources close to Redstone and Viacom" who said the situation is "so dire that selling CBS or Viacom ... is now a real possibility." Last week National Amusements said it was in talks to renegotiate $1.6 billion in debt. CBS and Viacom shares...

An appearance by Senator John McCain on Thursday night boosted David Letterman to his best ratings in almost three years. Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, returned to Mr. Letterman’s CBS show after several weeks of battering from the host for his abrupt decision to cancel an earlier appearance. According to initial overnight ratings, the Letterman show attracted 6.53 million viewers, well above Mr. Letterman’s usual total of about 3.5 million viewers and the best he has scored since Dec. 1, 2005. (That night’s guest was another noteworthy figure with whom the host had had an on-and-off comic feud: Oprah...

John McCain's peace summit visit to CBS' "Late Show" gave David Letterman his highest viewership in nearly three years. The Thursday night telecast was seen by 6.5 million viewers, and received a 1.7 rating in the adult demo. That's the largest audience for the show since December, 2005, when Oprah Winfrey appeared. "Late Show" also topped Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" (4.6 million viewers) by 43%, and Leno had Joe Biden as a guest. "Can I give you an answer?" says McCain when ribbed about his previous appearance cancellation. "I screwed up." Last night marked McCain's 14th appearance on the show....

CBS fires Channel 2 boss Joe Ahern October 15, 2008 BY ROBERT FEDER Sun-Times Columnist In the end, there was no one else to blame and no one else to fire. Joe Ahern had six years, two months, two days and -- for much of that time -- a virtually unlimited budget to turn around the fortunes of WBBM-Channel 2. » Click to enlarge image Joe Ahern served six years as president and general manager of CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2. He was fired today. (Courtesy) But in all that time and with all those resources, he left the CBS-owned station arguably...

Doesn't matter that John McCain promised to appear on David Letterman's CBS show Thursday, as a makeup for blowing him off earlier. Dave continued his ongoing pounding of McCain -- and Sarah Palin -- on his show Monday. It's like Dave doesn't believe McCain will show. From the monologue: "And the third presidential debate is Wednesday night. John McCain says he's going to win. John McCain is going to win the third presidential debate. Of course, he also told Custer the surge was working." "But it's going to be a big week for John McCain. Don't kid yourself. Today and...

What wouldn’t presidential candidates do for media hype? Tough question. What they would surely do, however, is get big bucks out of their pockets and buy network primetime. At least this is what the Democratic presidential nominee did. The Barack Obama campaign will pay NBC and CBS just under $1 million each so as to air the ad-program it will create for the first 30 minutes of primetime on October 29, according to documents released by the two networks. The established prices are far from reaching the standard fees an usual advertiser would be required to pay for a half-hour...

David Letterman and Sen. John McCain will get a chance to make up. The Republican presidential candidate is scheduled to appear on Letterman's "Late Show" on Thursday. It will be McCain's 13th visit to the CBS program but his first since he angered Letterman by canceling last month. Letterman was unhappy when McCain sat for an interview with Katie Couric instead of him on Sept. 24. At the time he said he first felt like a "patriot" to let McCain off his commitment to deal with the economy but "now I'm feeling like an ugly date." A McCain spokeswoman said...

NEW YORK (AP) — David Letterman and Sen. John McCain will get a chance to make up. The Republican presidential candidate is scheduled to appear on Letterman's "Late Show" on Thursday. It will be McCain's 13th visit to the CBS program but his first since he angered Letterman by canceling last month.

(CBS) Could a matter of race decide the Presidential election? Few voters are willing to say so out loud. But what are they thinking in private? Our cover story is reported now by Bill Whitaker: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's the vexing issue hiding in plain sight. "I know there are some people who won't vote for me because I'm black, and that's ok," said Democratic candidate Barack Obama. Even as the economy seems to be in freefall, as Americans grapple with whether to vote for Obama, the first African American presidential nominee, or his Republican opponent, John McCain, it's a decision unavoidably...

Sarah Palin will probably still beat his ratings when she appears on Saturday Night Live in two weeks, but Barack Obama is getting a pretty good deal. The first presidential candidate to buy up network TV time in 16 years, the Democratic nominee for President is getting primetime airspace at a sub-prime rate. Obama will reportedly only be paying $1 million to every network that airs his 30 minute infomercial on October 29. So far, both CBS and NBC will run the program. The campaign is reportedly still talking to ABC and FOX as well. Everything is above board. The...

SUMNER TAKES A FALL By PETER LAURIA October 11, 2008 -- Sumner Redstone had his own Black Friday yesterday. All three of the companies Redstone controls - National Amusements Inc., CBS, and Viacom - took hits as a result of the credit crunch. The most ominous move - and one that raised concerns that Redstone might be experiencing liquidity issues - came from movie theater operator National Amusements, which is being forced to sell $400 million of stock in Viacom and CBS to meet debt-covenant agreements. The sale will reduce Redstone's combined stakes in Viacom and CBS by 20 percent...

NEW YORK -- Barack Obama will pay NBC and CBS almost $1 million each for the campaign's half-hour ad buy in primetime Wednesday, Oct. 29, less than a week before the election. According to papers available at CBS's headquarters in New York, the campaign agreed Monday to pay $961,000 for the entire 8-8:30 pm time period. It wasn't clear whether that was in pattern, meaning it would run across all time zones at that period.

CBS Corp. (CBS) said Friday it expects to report adjusted earnings of 42 cents to 44 cents a share in the third quarter, adding that the economic slowdown has hit advertising revenues. Analysts surveyed by FactSet Research estimate earnings of 42 cents a share. snip

Obama buys airtime on networks for anniversary of Black Tuesday in 1929 By MARGARET TALEV McClatchy Newspapers Barack Obama is buying a half-hour slot on television networks in prime time Oct. 29, the anniversary of Black Tuesday of 1929, when panic in the stock markets set in ahead of the Great Depression. Obama, leaving a campaign stop in a diner in Georgetown, Ohio, on Thursday evening, declined to say whether he plans to address the current economic crisis in the context of the depression. He wouldn’t talk about the nature of the programming, saying, "We’re going to be talking about...

Obama purchases half hour of primetime on CBS, also in talks with FOX, NBC... DEVELOPING...

Despite the lies told by the press and by John Kerry, special forces did in fact try to kill Bin Laden at Tora Bora. The biggest challenge in the operation was in fact the terrain. Afghan fighters who were to actually lead the charge ended up turning on the US forces during a cease fire they had with al Qaeda. Then there is the big issue as told by the officer,